“Technology to be in every room”

Here’s yet another Smart Board love affair. One-third of district classrooms had a Smart Board, so the district decided to install a Smart Board and projector in all classrooms. I would like to know what decision-making process led to this $2m expense. What if only one-third of the teachers used the technology effectively? How do these devices help students actively learn?

If we could give every student a computer, we would,” said Rick Green, director of information technology for the 24,000-student district. “This is as close as we could get.

Smart Boards enable a teacher to organize and present content visually. Computers allow students to engage with and produce content. Surely small classroom laptop sets would have come closer to the expressed ideal?